


let’s say we’re not enemies

by forgeturself



Category: Vampyr (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animal Death, Blood Drinking, Blood and Injury, Combat Fatigue, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Jonathan Reid, Trust Issues, Vampire!McCullum, Work In Progress, no rats were harmed during the making of this fanfic, pacifist!Reid
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:47:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28744215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgeturself/pseuds/forgeturself
Summary: How could he have won against someone so efficient in taking down vampires and so determined to kill him, when all Jonathan had wanted had been to find a way to cooperate with the hunter? For most of the fight he had pulled his punches and by the time he’d realized he couldn’t afford to, it had been too late.Or: Reid loses the fight, but McCullum doesn’t kill him – otherwise this story would just be a death screen
Relationships: Geoffrey McCullum & Jonathan Reid, Geoffrey McCullum/Jonathan Reid
Comments: 24
Kudos: 75





	1. Is it always like this?

  


A shaking hand closing around Jonathan’s neck had him gasping for air. Searching fingers travelled upwards almost clumsily, scratched along the underside of his jaw where they dug in and bruised skin. A thumb pressed down just beneath his ear and tilted his head back slowly but surely until it began to hurt and then some. His vision was swimming, washed out colours, bleeding grey flaked with darkness. Something, some _one_ leaned in close. A dark, imposing silhouette, breathing harshly through their nose, scenting the sweet tang of iron underneath the salt and bitterness of sweat and grime covering his skin. The cold tip of a nose bumped against the column of his neck, a graze of dry lips. A feral beast searching out the taste of blood in the cut along his jugular.

He screwed his eyes shut, expecting sharp teeth to dig deep into his flesh between this heartbeat and the next. Instead, a thin whine sounded right beside his ear, a brittle thing. Confused and lost and out of place in the aftermath of violence. The grip on his jaw turned limp, soft in a way that felt almost like a caress, an apology. He thought he could hear a whisper of his own name, asking for permission, pleading for it. Whoever had found him, collapsed on the ground with his body half torn apart from the fight against the hunter, had to be starving. And if Jonathan had come to know anything since the day he had died it was hunger, a rotting hole in the very centre of his chest, the first thought whenever he laid eyes on a living being and the last thought when he fell asleep at dawn. “It’s alright,” he slurred, his voice shot to hell from a sliced-up throat.

Another whine, this time more desperate, turned into a growl, and the person shoved their face against the slope of his neck. The hand on his jaw moved blindly over his face until fingers curled into his short hair, blunt claws scraped over his scalp. A tongue darted out against his skin, tracing the edges of the wound, at first carefully licking at barely dried blood, but as soon as a gush of fresh liquid broke through, any reservation was lost to thirst. It wasn’t as much a bite as an aggressive sucking when teeth sliced into the cut and opened the once half-healed wound further. Jonathan felt the blood reluctantly leave his veins, what little he had left, and with it his consciousness faded.

He didn’t know if he would survive the vampire feeding on him, but it wasn’t like he had expected to be alive anyway. The fight he’d lost seemed distant now, a nightmare of words spoken in hate, scorching light and unforgiving steel. How could he have won against someone so efficient in taking down vampires and so determined to kill him, when all Jonathan had wanted had been to find a way to cooperate with the hunter? For most of the fight he had pulled his punches and by the time he’d realized he couldn’t afford to, it had been too late.

  


* * *

  


He was jolted back to awareness with a shocked cry when pain suddenly burst from his hand. Wide eyed and confused he watched flames erupt from his skin before he could pull it out of the circle of white blinding light. With a groan he cradled the blistering arm to his chest and curled around it. It hurt like acid poured over his skin, but still the pain was only second to the thirst thrumming through his veins, aching in his gums and quickly eclipsing every other need. He could feel his whole body trembling with it, his mouth salivating with the thought of hot liquid pouring over his teeth.

The quiet growl only registered distantly in his ears and a moment passed before he looked up through blurred vision to find a pair of eyes staring back at him from the black shadows on the other side of the cone of light. It took his hazy mind a while to make out the outline of a person, a man huddled up against the near wall. “McCullum?” he asked hesitantly, not because it made sense, but because he recognized the scent of blood on him. There came no answer. The hunter blinked slowly and then let his head sink down onto the arms crossed over his knees, seemingly indifferent, though his eyes continued to glower at him. “Why haven’t you killed me?” McCullum certainly had shown no intention of mercy during their fight, so why now?

Eyes narrowed at him and the hunter lifted his head to show his bared teeth as he hissed, “You’ll get what’s coming to you soon enough.” Despite his cowering posture his voice was filled with venom. There was something terribly off about the hunter, something coiled inside him that was about to tear free and as much as Jonathan was wary of it, he also recognized it. The effort to hold himself together tightly when the world around him was a crushing tide of thirst lapping at his senses. When there was no colour to the world except vermilion.

The way McCullum hid in the shadows, the way his tongue darted out nervously to lick the blood from his lips, the fact that he was _uninjured_ despite half the blood splattered around the room being his. “You’re a vampire.” He sucked in a breath and closed his eyes when a pang of guilt churned his stomach. His sister had been right. The city was plagued by a disease and Jonathan was at the very heart of it, spreading it. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“Shut up and die, leech,” McCullum snarled with a crack in his voice that revealed a thick layer of misery underneath. He picked something up from the ground beside him and Jonathan was about to wonder what the hunter was doing when suddenly something hit him square in the chest and he flinched away in a yelp of pain. The crossbow clattered over the floor uselessly, the stave had been bent and the stock broken somewhere in the midst of their fight.

With a shaking hand he soothed over the blooming ache of the new bruise between many. “I’m so sorry.” He hadn’t meant to apologize. Mary had already told him, it was of no use to anyone. From the way McCullum scoffed at his words, he appeared to agree on that. Jonathan turned his head away, decided on keeping his mouth shut. When morning came, the pain and hunger gnawing at his bones eventually wouldn’t be enough anymore to keep the exhaustion at bay.

A noise from the elevator had them both snap their heads in its direction. The hum of electricity and the quiet click of gears turning. From the scent of it was a group of Priwen guards - but it didn’t really matter who it was, did it? They were human and a new-born vampire was waiting for them to set foot into the attic. When Jonathan’s gaze slid over to the hunter he found the man visibly distressed, crouched low on all fours and breathing heavily. His eyes were wide, almost glowing in the shadows, his teeth biting into his lower lip with a trickle of blood running down his chin. The hunter looked like he was torn between pouncing on his prey or vanishing into thin air the moment they would raise the wooden shutters. Just before the elevator arrived, his head snapped to the side and with a last panicked look at Jonathan he disappeared, leaving behind nothing but a quickly fading mist of darkness.

He wouldn’t get another chance to make his escape, so Jonathan gritted his teeth and sluggishly peeled himself off the floor. His left arm slung around his stomach he’d almost made it to his feet when a spike of pain through his chest had him crumbling back to his knees. The room started to spin in a disorientating staccato and the air felt oddly cold against his skin. Blood roared in his ears as an intoxicating smell hit his nostrils and drowned out anything else. His jaw hurt, his _teeth_ hurt, he could feel saliva dripping from his lips. He was _so hungry_. Maybe he could catch one of them off guard. It wasn’t like he would kill them, it would just hurt a little bit, really, just for a second. And they had so much to spare, right? They were healthy and he was in pain and he _needed_ -

A sharp boot to his side sent him almost sprawling to the floor and had him cough up a mouthful of blood. The pain at least pulled his surroundings back from the swirl of black and red schemes. “Look what we have here. McCullum messed you up pretty bad, eh, beast?” a voice behind him sneered and something blunt dug into his back between his shoulder blades.

“Not so respectable now, are we, Doctor?” A second man stepped in front of him, his torch held threateningly close to the vampire’s skin. He could see the black oil dripping from the tip, feel the heat radiate off it and recoiled only to be grabbed by his collar and yanked back into place.

“Stay away from me,” Jonathan hissed with little bite and even less struggle, the flames rippling through the air only inches from his face.

They just laughed at him, emboldened by his apparent weakness. “Oh, you do live up to your reputation, Doctor Reid, ever so considerate.”

“Stop playing with it,” an older woman stepped in curtly. “Any sign of McCullum?”

“Lots of blood. But he can’t be dead, right?” another one mumbled to herself.

The man with the torch stepped back before he looked around the room. While the one at Jonathan’s back still pointedly had his shotgun directed at him, the other three spread out to search the attic for clues. The vampire tensed, weighing his chances, with the man’s heartbeat drumming so loud in his ears he almost didn’t hear him say, “Go ahead, try something, beast. Give me an excuse to blow your head off.”

“I won’t harm you,” Jonathan tried to appease, but the man didn’t believe him even for a second and the vampire had to admit that he was right. All that kept his hunger at bay were ultraviolet light encircling him and the barrel pressed to his temple. Maybe if the guard got distracted he could dodge the shotgun, bring the man down and bury his teeth into the soft flesh of his neck. He’d just need a small sip of blood to soothe over the worst of the thirst burning at the back of his throat. With the crippling weakness shed from his limbs he’d be able to make a run for it easily.

Before he could act upon anything and mess up something bad, the others came circling back. “Got his crossbow here. Apart from that, nothing.” The group stood around, at a loss what had happened to their leader. McCullum was gone, that was all everyone knew. “What about the leech? Are we going to finish it off or what?”

“We’re taking it back to headquarters,” the older woman decided after a moment which earned her a general expression of disbelief from the others. “We lost Doctor Swansea,” she added with a wary glance at the vampire. “We need a replacement.” It took her another few pointed looks and vague hand signs before the others took action. Jonathan snarled as one of the women closed in with a rope in her hands, but a sudden blow to the back of his head had the world swimming out of focus and into darkness.

  


* * *

  


He drifted for a while. Red soaked dreams along the edges of his consciousness. Flakes of ash fell through the air, scratched at the back of his throat and parched his mouth. With heavy breaths that did nothing to fill his lungs he followed the stench of rusted iron until he could see the fields stretch out before him, the miles and miles of faceless corpses. He fell to his knees, sunk deep into the mud and grime. Oblivious to the easy give of rotten flesh beneath his fingers, the brittle crack of mucous-covered bones as he dug for something to feed on.

  


* * *

  


The first thing he became aware of was the smell of blood that led him from his dream into wakefulness. It clung to the ground beneath him, smothered every surface like a heavy blanket. A dried puddle of blood that had a foul aftertaste of death to it, but his thirst cared little. Even when he recognized something familiar in its scent, he was still more inclined to lick it off the mouldy floorboards than to recoil in revulsion.

Only slowly the realization set in that it was Edgar who had been killed here, his blood on the floor, his fear still a quiet echo off the walls. When the woman had said, they ‘lost’ the doctor, she’d meant they murdered him. Some part of him had clung to the naive hope that Edgar had managed to flee. Or, if not, that when Priwen took Jonathan captive, they would bring him right to him and together they could escape this nightmare. _“We don’t kill humans.”_ What a joke, what an idiot he had been to trust in the hunter’s empty words even for one second. If he had just focused on winning the fight instead of finding a way to compromise, he could have saved Edgar.

Bile rose at the back of his throat and he reached up with shaking hands to cover his mouth, only to find them chained in cold, heavy iron and bound tightly with barbed wire that cut into his wrists. With a confused groan he took in his surroundings through blurred vision, momentarily distracted from Edgar’s death and the hunger gnawing at his insides. His gaze followed the trail of the chain meandering over a thick carpet until it led upwards where it was slung loosely over a beam. Under the ceiling a lonely gas lamp illuminated old furniture lining the sides of a windowless room. Deep-red wallpaper hung in shreds off the walls, lush curtains of the same dye draped and the occasional theatre poster in between. Recognition fluttered through Jonathan’s mind, the woman in the pictures and the bad state of the place, but his gaze clung to the vermillion paint until it was the only colour he could see. Nestled in a web of veins a pulsating core, guiding him like a beacon in the dark, _thump-thump_. Three of them, just on the other side of the door. Prey, his instincts whispered, hunt and _feed_.

He remembered it well, the taste of human blood, Mary’s blood. Sweet and hot like molten sugar on his tongue. An addiction that had infested every cell of his body, soaked through to the marrow of his bones the moment he’d woken up at the bottom of a mass grave as a monster with the face of a man. He would kill the guards. He would tear their bodies to shreds to get to the red liquid in their veins.

With a low whine he pressed his face against the floor, his mouth open and panting, his throat swallowed around nothing. Edgar’s dried blood was right there, just inches away. He didn’t have to hurt or even kill anyone for this. If he could only drown out the voice telling him it was despicable beneath the chorus screaming out in starvation, for a taste sweet and divine. Fingers curled against the floorboards, nails broke against splintering wood and the barbed wire wedged itself deeper into his flesh, but the pain barely registered. His skin felt numb and clammy, too cold even for his kind. He needed this, just a little lick perhaps, just enough to get his sanity back, to stop himself from becoming something feral. It couldn’t be any worse than sinking his teeth into the filthy-wet fur of London’s gutter rats. Why was he even fighting this? Edgar certainly wouldn’t have minded, even so, he wasn’t able to judge him for it. Not anymore.

“Is it always like this? So little control, so far gone?” a low voice inquired, barely a step away from him.

Whoever it was should have registered as a threat, but instead all his senses acknowledged was the loud, insistent beat of a heart. His body reacted far quicker than his sluggish mind could keep up with. In a sudden burst of shadow he’d already lunged at his prey and dragged it to the ground before he could at least slow himself down. Saliva was dripping from his open lips though his mouth felt dry, his gums swollen. He was so close now he could almost taste blood running over his tongue, down his throat and finally quench the thirst burning up his insides like a fever.

“You should see yourself now, Doctor Reid,” the man under him said in an irritatingly amused voice and made no attempt to free himself. “You’re just about to lose it, aren’t you?”

His only answer was a scowl and a broken snarl and even with his fraying mind he couldn’t deny the truth in those words. He leaned back and screwed his eyes shut against the sight of pale skin peeking out beneath a loose, red scarf. Still, he could see the pulsating network of veins, now glowing even brighter in the darkness behind his eyelids. His hands, clawed into the man’s collar, started to shake uncontrollably with the effort to let go. His teeth ached, his jaw ached, his throat felt like it was scraped raw. Everything hurt and everything screamed at him how easy it would be to end his suffering.

A hand cupped his cheek gently and he couldn’t help but turn his face towards it. His mouth fell open involuntarily, the flat sides of his teeth pressed against the soft skin at the wrist and he could feel the faint pulse thrumming underneath. “It’s alright.” It was spoken so unbearably soft it caught him completely off guard. A shudder went through his whole body when it shattered the last of his wavering resolve with ease. He barely noticed how his hands grabbed onto the wrist and his fangs pierced flesh. When a gush of blood filled his mouth, ran cool and soothing down his dried-out throat he almost sobbed in relief. As the liquid flowed he drank greedily, lapped at the torn skin to catch every trickle, and when that wasn’t enough anymore, he dug his teeth in deeper to open the veins up wider.

“Ouch,” Jonathan heard the man complain and then there was a light tug at the arm in his hold like it was asking to be released. His answering growl was muffled behind flesh and teeth, but the warning came across and his prey stopped struggling. “Ah, well, I guess it’s only fair.” There was nothing fair about this. All Jonathan did was take, drain the life from his victim’s veins until they would have nothing left to feed his addiction. And in return he only brought suffering and pain. Reluctantly the red mist in his head gave way to something lost in between self-hatred and misery. The moment he had enough control to stop himself, he relaxed his jaw and pulled his teeth from the wound. When his eyes flickered open to look at his victim’s face for the first time, McCullum met his gaze with a lopsided smile.

Wide-eyed he decidedly shoved the bleeding arm away from his mouth. “What are you doing?” he blurted out after he’d retreated a few steps which was as far as the rattling chains allowed. McCullum cocked an unimpressed eyebrow at him as he casually got to his feet and then inspected his injured wrist with a slight grimace. Though, instead of taking care of the wound, he just patted some dust from his clothes and Jonathan could only watch him in wary disbelief. The sight of the hunter acting suspiciously calm and friendlier than he had ever seen him before did not fit into his expectations at all. This was supposed to be Mary all over again. “You should hate me. You should be here to end me. You’re a vampire hunter and I turned you into this- this…”

“Get over yourself, Reid. I got into this mess all by myself,” McCullum cut him off with a roll of his eyes. “Turned out this ‘true defender of Britain’ was a bloody leech.” His face had darkened at those words, but in the next moment he flashed a smile of too sharp teeth. “Guess I shouldn’t have drunk that bottle of thousand-year-old blood.”

“Four weeks,” Jonathan said absentmindedly. While it was terrible what had happened to McCullum, inwardly he felt relieved that he hadn’t given the hunter yet another reason to despise him. When Mary had paid a terrible price for her brother’s uncontrolled thirst for blood, the horror she had been forced to go through had given her every right to hate him. With trepidation he remembered his promise to her, to find a cure for their sickness, and wondered if there was any hope to it at all. Seeing her so desperate, so _broken_ – with her blood on his hands he would have promised her everything under the sky, and so he had.

“What?” McCullum’s bewildered question pulled Jonathan from his thoughts.

It took him a moment to remember what McCullum was asking about, then the explanation fell automatically from his lips. “Human blood can be preserved for four weeks if you add sodium ci-”

“Yes, thank you, Doctor Reid,” the hunter waved him off and gave him a wry grin. “I’ll keep it in mind next time.”

“You fed on someone before you came here,” Jonathan realized in alarm. The meagre rest of blood he’d taken from Jonathan after their fight couldn’t have been enough for a new-born. His muscles tensed as he looked McCullum over apprehensively. He didn’t think he could win against him this time either. Despite the fresh blood in his veins, he was still weak, his hands were chained and the whole building was crawling with vampire hunters. “Did you kill them?” he asked carefully, wondering what he was expecting.

McCullum jut out his chin and glared at him. “What’s it to you, leech?” A moment later his expression fell and something was clearly off in the way his gaze strayed and lost focus. “I haven’t killed anyone for it,” he mumbled defensively, though when Jonathan shot him a doubtful look he grimaced and amended his words. “At least not anyone who wasn’t already dead.” His brows furrowed as his eyes flickered back to Jonathan. “They didn’t…” he started hesitantly, but he stopped himself with a slight shake of his head and instead said, “I’ve been killing leeches for the last two decades. That’s not going to change now.”

Jonathan couldn’t decide if he liked that any better and scowled. “Then why haven’t you killed me as well? Why let me drink your blood?” The hunter had made barely an attempt to stop him. Would he have let him drink his full if Jonathan hadn’t torn himself away? “What do you want from me?” Whatever it was, Priwen apparently needed him lucid.

McCullum watched him cautiously for a moment before he offered with reluctance, “Let’s say, we’re not enemies.” His posture suddenly became defensive, like he expected Jonathan to attack him for that proposition alone.

He had to bite back a sarcastic and bitter retort. It was obvious how the hunter struggled with himself to show him even an inch of trust and Jonathan didn’t want to risk undoing their progress. “We’re not,” he agreed plainly. “We’re both just trying to end this epidemic.”

“How is this so easy for you?” McCullum demanded to know. “I ordered the abduction and interrogation of your friend which resulted in his death.”

Jonathan’s eyes flickered to the puddle of blood on the ground. He could almost picture it. Edgar strung up defenceless, skin bruised and bones broken. Beaten up and tortured to a slow and painful death. “If you had been there, would you have let him die?” he asked quietly.

McCullum seemed to inflate a little as he sighed and shook his head. “I didn’t mean to lie when I said we wouldn’t kill him. But it happened and I won’t apologize for it.”

“I don’t want your apology,” Jonathan snapped at him. Taking a deep breath he tried to temper the sudden flare of anger in his chest, but it was still evident in his voice when he asked, “Is this what you want your Guard of Priwen to be? A bunch of vicious thugs and bullies who would torture someone to death?”

“‘Someone’ who was responsible for the epidemic. Just as you are. Make no mistake, if we didn’t need your help, I wouldn’t hesitate to finish the job and cut off your head,” McCullum sneered and took a challenging step forward. “Stop pretending you’re any better than us, leech. You’ve left your own trail of corpses.”

Jonathan closed his eyes and did his best to keep his expression blank. “You’re right.” He’d seen enough violence for even an eternal lifetime, and he began to wonder if the war had made him a coward. He’d come home to find himself on yet another battlefield, surrounded by death and madness. Every fight he’d been forced into left him more exhausted and disoriented. By the time the leader of Priwen had confronted him, it had long stopped making sense to defend himself.

“You will help us fix this. And when we’ve killed Marshal, you will face the same fate as your maker.” McCullum’s promise felt like a final sentence and Jonathan just shrugged in assent. He was too tired to deal with his bitter accusation and constant distrust any longer. It didn’t matter what he said anyway, or even what he did. In the hunter’s eyes he was a vampire, a creature of deceit. All his motivations were tainted by evil.

Mary had seen the same in him. He’d tried harder after he’d killed her a second time. Visited more patients who would barely heed his advice and got sick again. Took more shifts in the hospital only to watch helplessly as people died of the flue, or even killed them off himself when he noticed them turn. Buried himself night after night in research for a cure that would never be found. In the end he had nothing to show for it. Time was running out and soon London would succumb, not to German soldiers, but to its own citizens turned frenzied immortals.

  



	2. Would you even tell me?

  


Not much more than an hour could have passed by when the door opened again. He lifted his head just enough to recognize Geoffrey McCullum out of the corner of his eyes, reluctant to meet the hunter’s gaze where he knew he would find only scorn. With a quiet sigh Jonathan acknowledged his presence before he let his forehead drop onto his knees and curled back into himself. There should be anger seething inside of him for Edgar’s unjust death, instead there was just nothing. An ugly emptiness that filled out his chest, pressed against the inside of his skull and left him feeling weak and drained. If the hunter had come back to kill him, he didn’t think he could bring himself to defend, never mind fight back. Even if he was just here to throw more hateful words at his captive, Jonathan wasn’t ready to face him. He knew part of him was only too willing to see vampires the same way as McCullum did. With his eyes screwed shut and gritted teeth he dreaded every step the hunter took towards him.

Hesitantly McCullum crouched down at his side. “Reid?” he ventured in a strangely careful voice. Jonathan didn’t bother to give any indication that he’d heard him and for a few slow heartbeats he could almost feel the new-born’s searching gaze on him. “Are you still thirsty?” The question sounded deceptively soft. Fingertips touched his shoulder, not in a comforting gesture but a taunting offer for blood as the faint pulse of another heart got closer.

If Jonathan didn’t know better, he’d think the hunter was worried about him. But he did know better, and so he just grumbled, “Get off my back, McCullum.” There was none of the venom he would have liked in his tone. Instead just a dragging tiredness that marked him an easy target.

“Well, aren’t you a cute bastard,” McCullum scoffed. With a quick movement and little care he grabbed Jonathan’s arm, pulled him off the ground and shoved him into a nearby chair. “You don’t seriously think I’d fall for this moping act, do you?” Only slowly he released his arm and stepped back.

On some level it was easier to deal with the hunter when he was being openly hostile instead of his confusing kindness that he pretended at other times. Jonathan had barely flinched when the hunter manhandled him, just ducked his head and averted his gaze. “What do you want?” It wouldn’t do him any good to defy his jailer. And honestly, he couldn’t find a reason to. If he were out there in the streets, he wouldn’t know where to begin to end the epidemic. At least in the basement beneath the rundown theatre he was left in peace. No members of the Ascalon Club itching for a fight, no feral Skals or Beasts to jump him and apart from their leader not even Priwen bothered him much down here. Not to mention he didn’t have to navigate and trick his way through human society when he’d ceased to be part of it.

“How nice of you to ask, Doctor.” The hunter’s wry grin was audible in his voice. Paper rustled as he dug something from a pocket inside his coat and held it out. “Explain to me what you and Swansea did to her.”

Jonathan’s interest was piqued and his eyes snapped up to the beige-coloured folder where he immediately recognized the crest of the Pembroke Hospital. Underneath in cursive letters it read ‘Harriet Jones’, stamped ‘deceased’. “I thought you said Doris Fletcher was our experiment?” he asked in surprise but was promptly cut off.

“Her real name was Doris Jones. She visited her mother at the Pembroke Hospital. That’s how she got infected,” the hunter barked and threw the folder unceremoniously in his lap. “I tire of your feigned innocence. Just tell me what exactly you did to Harriet Jones, so I can make sure anyone who tries it again drops dead before they can succeed.”

Jonathan stared at him, then down at the folder in his hands, his thoughts suddenly going a mile a minute. How had he not seen this before? Harriet’s symptoms were similar if not identical to Doris Fletcher’s mutation and thirst for vengeance. Their sickness, their hatred, their blood. Jonathan had to admit, he hadn’t really thought McCullum’s accusations to have any ground, but this made sense.

Abruptly he stood and slipped past the hunter who followed him with a scowl. In the middle of the room, underneath the gas lamp he set the folder on the ground and flipped through the pages, the range of his hands still hindered by the chains. A few drops of blood dripping from his wrists splattered the paper, but he didn’t have the mind to care. The report dated back weeks and it took him a while until he found what he was looking for. Swansea had treated her influenza over an extended time with the blood of another person. The donor’s name was mentioned with nothing but the two letters E and A, written neatly in Edgar’s handwriting. Knowing the doctor’s scientific fascination for vampires and his connection to Lady Ashbury, it didn’t seem farfetched that it had been her blood.

Jonathan blinked at the page in confusion and disbelieve. What had Edgar been thinking? Though he couldn’t have foreseen the devastating epidemic he would create, he must have known vampire blood would kill a human and turn them into something monstrous. And to experiment on an unwitting patient with stolen blood? Whatever his intentions had been, even if only to find a cure, this was cruel to both Jones and Lady Ashbury.

A moment later another realization dawned on him and his eyes flickered up to McCullum. “You think she’s dead. You think, once you’ve killed both Marshal and me, all this horror will come to an end.” The hunter watched him warily as Jonathan rose to his feet. “She’s not. Harriet Jones faked her death. She will become something far worse than her daughter-”

“Your abomination won’t save you, Reid,” he hissed darkly and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. “I’ll make sure of that.”

“What…?” Jonathan looked at him in confusion and just for a second he thought there was a flicker of uncertainty in McCullum’s eyes as well. Replaying his words in his head he realized the hunter had instinctively twisted their whole meaning. “That wasn’t a threat,” he explained with as little frustration seeping into his voice as he could manage. “I’m telling you this so we can prevent the worst from happening. Make up your mind, McCullum. Either you let me help you, or you let me go.”

“Or, I let you die,” he snarled and bared his teeth. “After you killed Doris Fletcher I let you go. I won’t make the same mistake twice.” For a moment longer the hunter stared him down with a menacing glare, until his anger reluctantly broke away and turned into something thoughtful. His eyes flickered searchingly over Jonathan’s face as he admitted quietly, “I want to trust you.” He shrugged in a helpless gesture and shook his head. “But I don’t know how.”

Jonathan opened his mouth before he realized he didn’t have anything to say in his defence. He couldn’t fault McCullum when he’d never met an Ekon himself who he would have been able to trust, or wanted to. Even during a devastating epidemic all they cared about was to feed and to keep to themselves. They were arrogant if not cruel and thought of humans merely as cattle, as slaves, at best as something pitiable. Jonathan couldn’t help but wonder if he’d already started to become the same kind of indifferent, if the search for a cure was just an excuse to satisfy his curiosity for a blood-born disease. He watched people die every night, saw their discarded corpses piled up in the streets, rotting in the sewers and barely batted an eye. There must have been a point where part of him had just… stopped caring. “I’ve never lied to you,” was all he had to offer in in the end.

The hands on Jonathan’s collar loosened their grip and slowly moved upwards instead, along the curve of his neck. Fingers dug into the short, dark hair and pulled his head back, exposing his throat inch by inch. The hunter watched him carefully as Jonathan suppressed a violent shiver. “You lied to me, when you said this was alright,” he mumbled, a muted note of sadness in his voice that seemed almost alien between his usual sarcasm and anger. His gaze dropped to where his thumb brushed over the vulnerable skin, right above the pulsating vein.

Jonathan stared at him wide-eyed like a dear caught in the headlights, torn between keeping still and shoving the hunter away, and still stuck on McCullum’s words. To have them spoken out loud was disorienting, not because he had caught the lie, but because it forced Jonathan to admit to the both of them, “I did.” No matter how scared and lost the new-born had appeared in that moment and how badly Jonathan had wanted to give him what little comfort he had had to offer, it had been nothing but one of too many lies he liked to tell himself just so he could fall asleep with the sunrise. McCullum narrowed his eyes at him and Jonathan tried and failed to hold his gaze. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t need to. However human the habit seemed, they both knew it were lies like these that would turn them into monsters eventually.

When McCullum slowly pulled his hands away from his neck, his fingertips lingered too long for it to be accidental over the veins running down his throat, and Jonathan took a shaking breath he didn’t need, to stifle the tingling his touch had left on his skin. “Do you know where she is?” McCullum asked evenly but couldn’t completely hide the wariness in his tone. In the next moment he apparently gave up on pretending altogether and added with a cracked laugh and audible resignation, “Would you even tell me if you did?”

Too late Jonathan remembered that he couldn’t actually just tell him where Harriet Jones was. Even though McCullum was a vampire now, he wouldn’t have any sympathy to spare for the Sewer Skals, never mind mercy. He would cut them all down without a moment’s hesitation and Jonathan couldn’t let that happen. But what alternative was there? If he kept to his promise and refused to betray the Skals, it would mean to abandon London and all her citizens to the epidemic.

Something in McCullum’s expression closed off when Jonathan met his question only with silence. Every inch they had made towards working together was undone in the blink of an eye. With a snort and shake of his head he said, “Thought as much.” Then his lips curled back to reveal his sharp teeth in a vicious smile that seemed as feigned as it was intimidating, and Jonathan took an involuntary step away. “I’ll get my answers from you. One way or another.”

He’d fully expected the hunter to resort to torture, so he was all the more surprised when he didn’t act upon his threat and just turned on his heel. His gaze followed the hunter as he walked to the door and Jonathan thought there was something in the slope of his shoulders that spoke more of defeat than the violence he’d promised. Though maybe he only saw what he wanted to see. “You’re forgetting one thing, McCullum,” he said quietly, knowing the hunter could hear him as he turned his head just enough to indicate he was listening. “I can’t trust you either.”

After McCullum had slammed the door shut behind him, Jonathan heaved a sigh. If there had ever been a chance for him to get out of this in one piece and stop the epidemic, he had just ruined it. The thought had him almost laugh out loud. There was no chance in hell Priwen would ever just let him go. The only bargain he could hope to negotiate was a painless death.

  


* * *

  


Time crept by slowly while Jonathan sat in a chair and stared at the ceiling, or rather through it, watching the living pass over his head, one floor above. Absentmindedly, he tugged at his chains as he wondered if he had enough blood to spare to conjure a few tendrils from the shadows that could break them. After that he would still need to tear down the door, then run up the stairs for the nearest window before the Guard of Priwen could swarm him. Lady Ashbury’s mansion wasn’t far, but he couldn’t risk leading them there. Perhaps he could lose them in the narrow back alleys twisting around Whitechapel road instead, but eventually he would need to head south in order to find Harriet.

He didn’t have the slightest idea what would await him in the sewers, how far her mutation had spread by now. Maybe there was still time, maybe he could slow the process down somehow, just long enough for him to find a way to counteract the poison in her veins. Despite the rage and blood lust she had told him about, Harriet hadn’t wanted any of this, she hadn’t even killed anyone yet. It was only the cursed blood that would corrupt her nature into something monstrous.

His mind made up, Jonathan stretched his fingers, reached for the shadows and pulled black threads from the corners of the room where the light didn’t reach. Slithering over the floor, they wound around and through the chain links while they grew in thickness like rivulets swelling into rivers until the iron broke at the seams and started to bend outward. In a few seconds he had managed to shed the chains from his wrists, but grimaced as he saw how deep the remaining wire had cut into his wrists and the white sleeves of his shirt were soaked in his own blood up to his elbows. There was no way to get rid of it without further injuring himself.

When the door was suddenly thrown open, Jonathan flinched and retreated to the other side of the room in a burst of shadow, toppling over the chair in his haste. Only for a split second he saw surprise in McCullum’s expression before it was replaced with a dark frown and Jonathan couldn’t help but bare his teeth in response. Every step the hunter advanced on him, he backed away until the wall blocked any further retreat. At the same time, he twisted his wrist and pulled against the barbed wire in a growingly desperate attempt to free his hands for the inevitable fight. When it finally snapped off, he felt the sharp metal tear through his flesh as it unwound, and his vision threatened to flicker out. A thin growl vibrated in his throat as he let shadow spikes erupt beneath McCullum’s feet which he barely managed to sidestep. “Stay away from me!” he snarled, but pain and fear broke his voice and made his weakness evident.

Strangely, he stopped in his tracks, still a few steps away, and raised his open palms in a placating gesture that could only be a deception. “I’m not here to hurt you,” he said slowly, almost imploring, like he was dealing with a feral animal.

However, his calm demeanour only served to irritate Jonathan further. “Liar,” he growled at him and with a flick of his wrist another wave of deadly spikes surged up from the ground. This time it shredded through the tail of his coat and impaled a nearby commode in a burst of splintering wood when the hunter jumped backwards. He had hoped McCullum would use the opening to attack instead of retreat, but either way he was distracted enough for Jonathan to stumble past him and bolt for the door.

“Jonathan, stop. Please.” McCullum’s voice resonated through the small room with an odd offset, gentle and compelling.

Jonathan barely felt an itch of mesmerism at the back of his mind, but still he paused at the door, cursing the part of him that ached to trust the hunter and hoping he wouldn’t immediately come to regret it. Risking a quick glance with his vampiric senses to check for any human attackers, he found the basement unexpectedly empty. Only then he turned around to face the hunter and was met with a confused look in McCullum’s eyes, like he hadn’t thought Jonathan would stop and listen at all.

“I came here to make you an offer,” he almost stumbled over his own words as he continued. “You lead me to where Harriet Jones is and afterwards, you’re free to go. We will turn a blind eye as long as you don’t kill anyone.” It was obvious in the way he struggled to make such a compromise, that he still believed Jonathan had at least played a part in creating the vampire epidemic.

Jonathan watched him for a moment, half convinced McCullum would laugh at him and declare it all a joke as soon as he agreed. He grimaced inwardly at his own paranoia and decided to ignore the uneasy feeling at the back of his mind. “You can’t bring any of your Guard.” he warned him, resolved to let the vampire hunter come along, though he still had no idea how to prevent him from slaughtering the Sewer Skals. “If she’s too far gone to be saved, I’ll help you fight her.”

The leader of Priwen waved him off. “I know better than to send them to certain death, but I definitely don’t need your help, leech.” The scowl on his face made it clear that he would not risk having another vampire present who he expected would turn on him at the worst moment.

Jonathan knew there was no point in arguing when the hunter was being his stubborn self, and he had to admit that he would like nothing more than to leave the killing to someone else. But whatever Harriet might become was bound to be a creature more powerful and vicious than anything either of them had faced before. And it wasn’t like the new-born could actually stop him from joining the fight. So, rather than disagreeing he just shrugged lightly and asked, “Do I get my coat back? My medical supplies?”

Instead of answering, McCullum walked towards him and though his steps were deliberately slow, Jonathan couldn’t stop himself from backing away. When the hunter saw him retreat, his expression fell and turned into resignation. “Your belongings are actually just outside, on the floor.” He hesitated like he wanted to say something else, but then just made a vague gesture at the corridor on the other side of the door.

Jonathan looked down in bewilderment at the messy bundle that consisted not only of his coat and medical supplies but also his weapons. He hadn’t thought McCullum would go as far as to give them back, so he hadn’t bothered asking for them, maybe he hadn’t wanted them back in the first place. With clumsy fingers he picked his coat from the ground and fished a roll of bandages from one of its pockets. The amount of blood in his veins was too low for his wrists to heal so all he could do was patch up his wounds until he found something to feed on. His vision had already taken on a blurred tint of grey and soon he wouldn’t be able to ignore his thirst any longer.

“Reid? Let me help.” The hunter had come far too close for Jonathan’s liking, but instead of withdrawing again he only blinked at him in confusion and said nothing, because he didn’t know how to react to the softness in his voice. Not for the first time it seemed like McCullum cared about him and still Jonathan didn’t have the slightest idea how to handle it. There was simply no reason for the hunter to show any kindness, certainly not to a vampire. He had made that unmistakably clear.

McCullum was about to leave him alone, when Jonathan dropped his gaze and held out his injured hands. If the hunter meant to subdue him again, he had already let him get too close to escape anyway. Carefully, the other inspected his wrists and turned them slightly, so he could pick the remaining wire out of his bleeding skin. With the barbs hooked into the flesh it was a lost cause to avoid inflicting more pain, but his touch was gentle in an effort to try. Afterwards he took the bandage from Jonathan’s numb fingers and wrapped it with a practiced motion around each wrist. “We’ll catch some creature for you to feed on,” he promised and picked Jonathan’s coat off the ground after he had given his work a critical look and was convinced the dressing would hold out for a while.

Jonathan nodded and slipped into his coat with stiff movements. “There is no shortage of rats in the sewers,” he croaked and tucked away his hacksaw and the stake Charlotte had given him. Checking his medical supplies, he noticed that between figuring out the source of the epidemic in the West End, disappointing the Ascalon Club and losing to McCullum, he was now running low on everything. With a sigh he looked at the hunter, ready to suggest they set out, but paused when he saw him licking his blood from his fingers. For an odd moment he watched his tongue curl around his fingertip and licked over his own dry lips when he felt his hunger flare up violently at the back of his throat. The air was suddenly heavy with the sweet scent of blood and he could hear, even see, the other Ekon’s heart beating slowly inside his chest. The blood he craved was right there, bright red pulsing through the veins running along his neck. So close, he just had to reach out and let it take away his pain.

Like he’d been burned, McCullum dropped his hand and stepped away with an almost sheepish expression on his face. He cleared his throat and said with a somewhat coarse voice, “Let’s go.”

  



	3. Can't you see?

  


Jonathan followed McCullum up the stairs and gave him a curious look when the other man paused at the top instead of opening the door. It was ridiculously late for the hunter to change his mind, so he felt fairly certain that it had to be something else.

“Reid…” he started with a nervous tint to his voice that Jonathan had never heard from him before. “It would be better if no one sees you.”

Jonathan raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him. “I thought you discussed this with your Guard of Priwen.”

McCullum’s face took on an odd expression, like was he trying not to grimace. “Not in all detail,” he vaguely continued to sidestep.

“They don’t know you’re going alone,” Jonathan figured and was rewarded with a scowl.

“Well, obviously,” he admitted with a roll of his eyes, just before he opened the door without warning and slipped through. Jonathan cursed under his breath and hastened to followed. “Don’t worry about our agreement,” McCullum added as he caught up to him while they crossed the empty stage and made their way to the entrance hall. “As long you hold up your end of the bargain, I’ll make sure Priwen leaves you alone.” Though there was an honest determination in his tone, there was also an underlying note of contempt.

“I’d be already happy if _you_ left me alone,” Jonathan grumbled and braced himself for a night in difficult company. Still, perhaps good enough a distraction from the fight that they were running towards.

  


* * *

  


It didn’t take long for the rain to soak through their coats, but they were both used to the late autumn weather and the cold didn’t bother them as much anymore as when the blood in their veins had still been running warm. Their steps echoed wetly on the cobblestone as they took to the abundance of shadow while Jonathan led the way. Only a handful of Priwen guards were out on patrol and easily evaded. Unobstructed, the two of them passed through the crude wooden barricade that had been put up to isolate the West End from the other boroughs.

On the other side it was strangely quiet, at first glance almost peaceful. A faint mist shrouded the wide streets, smothered every sound to a dull murmur and greyed out the shapes of trees and buildings towards the distance. Here, the citizens lay asleep in their beds and though scared by war and plague, were ignorant of the monsters lurking in the alleys by night. At least most of them, Jonathan amended his observations and pulled McCullum into a side street as he saw Clarence standing at the corner of the Eastern Horse. He wasn’t keen on introducing his friend to the leader of Priwen turned new-born vampire.

“You’re leading me into a dark back alley, Reid? Really?” McCullum noted while he let himself be tugged along.

Distracted by making sure Clarence hadn’t spotted them, Jonathan just said, “It’s a shortcut.” Which wasn’t true by distance, but if they could avoid an awkward conversation, it would definitely save them time. He thought he heard the other man snort a quiet laugh, though when he side-eyed him, there was only his perpetual scowl to be found, a challenging look underneath at most. “After the next corner we’ll have to pass by the Ascalon Club, but I don’t think they’ll try anything out in the open,” he mentioned, less for the sake of communication than just to have an excuse why he’d been looking at McCullum. The hunter’s expression darkened at the mention of the name and when they rounded the corner his glare became outright hateful in a way Jonathan had only seen directed at himself. Belatedly he remembered the bloodbath inside the mansion, the curled-up corpses still clutching their dried-up wounds, the stench of death almost tangible in the air. How casually the Ekons had ignored it all, more worried about replacing their lavish furniture than the loss of human life.

When the sewer gate closed behind them with a low creak, Jonathan released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in. However, the vampire next to him appeared even more on edge with his hand clenched around the hilt of his longsword and his eyes darting nervously along the curve of the tunnels, scanning the semi-darkness for any threat. “There’s no one in this part of the sewers who’d attack us,” he assured him in an attempt to allay his wariness.

McCullum threw him an irritated look, though Jonathan thought he could see his fingers loosen their rigid grip incrementally. “If you say so,” he grumbled and unsheathed his weapon in one fluid motion, making it clear that he believed not one word from him. Instinctively, Jonathan took a step away, his skin still itched where the metal had shredded it to ribbons the other night.

Soon after they had made their way deeper into the tunnels and the air had become stale and thick with the stench of refuse, Jonathan could hear promising squeaks that had him perk up his ears and quicken his steps unconsciously. Small dots of red scurried between loose bricks and rotten crates searching for food in the washed-up muck. The rats were wary of the two vampires but not quite scared enough for their own good. Only when Jonathan snatched one of them up with his bare hands, the others fled into their hiding places. He held the rodent fast in his grip as it panicked and scratched his skin, and was about to bury his teeth into the small creature when he noticed McCullum staring at him open mouthed and suddenly felt uncomfortable under his gaze.

“You actually meant _rats_ ,” McCullum blurted out and gestured at the struggling animal in his hand.

“What else would I have meant?” Jonathan responded somewhat defensively and scowled until his eyes flickered back to the rat and he wasn’t able to tear them away again. What did it matter if the other vampire was disgusted by this? It wasn’t like he cared what McCullum thought of him. He needed to feed and this way at least he could spare a human becoming victim to his sick addiction.

“I don’t know. Like Skals, or some other kind of foul creature,” the hunter explained hesitantly, but the other man was listening only with half an ear. “You’re really going to…?”

After glaring at him in annoyance, Jonathan simply turned his back on him and then didn’t waste another moment to finally bite into the squirming animal. Fresh, hot blood ran over his tongue, barely a mouthful before it was sucked dry and he threw the meagre corpse away with a frustrated snarl. With the maddening thirst still burning up his insides, he lured one rat after another from their hiding holes using a faint mesmerism and hungrily dug his teeth into their fetid fur. Their blood wasn’t as sweet or rich as that of humans by far, still it tasted better than any food he could remember from before.

Eventually his hunger was sated to a bearable state. As his strength returned his pain receded with the blood rushing through his veins and quickly healing his wounds. Conscious of how feral his behaviour must have looked to McCullum, he carefully wiped the red from his mouth and out of his beard. His eyes fixed to the ground he quietly said, “It’s not far now.” Without waiting to see if the other followed he continued down the tunnel. For a while they walked silently side by side and a few times McCullum opened his mouth, a question apparently on the tip of his tongue, until he shook his head and didn’t try again.

  


* * *

  


As they went deeper the sewers became even filthier, the brick walls covered high in mould and slime. Between rotten wood and rusted barrels, putrid corpses of both animals and humans floated in knee-deep water and Jonathan refused to think about how they had ended up here and who or what had gnawed the flesh off their bones. Even McCullum was visibly relieved when they left the sewage behind them and entered the abandoned tunnels that had been dug into the raw stone beneath London.

Since his thirst no longer dominated his thoughts, Jonathan began to ponder how he could keep the Sewer Skals out of this. It crossed his mind that McCullum wouldn’t be so cruel as to cut them down on sight as Jonathan expected him to, but then he just shook his head, chiding himself for his naivety. He was running out of options the closer they got to the hideout, so when they rounded the next corner, he stopped in his tracks. “I was reluctant to tell you where Harriet is because she’s staying with a group of people I don’t want to see get hurt,” he explained in a sober tone. “Just follow the tunnel and you’ll get there.” Gesturing ahead he cast a glance at the hunter to make sure he had listened.

If McCullum had realized a split-second sooner what the other vampire had on his mind, he would have caught him. As it were, the moment he lunged forward Jonathan had already vanished into the shadows and out of his reach. “REID! You fucking bastard!” He shouted after him enraged. His voice echoed off the walls and so did his footsteps as he gave chase.

Jonathan couldn’t waste any time if he wanted to make use of his head start to warn Old Bridget and persuade her and her kin to clear out. Gracefully he jumped over the narrow abyss and hoped that the hunter would follow the longer way around as he had instructed him. He didn’t dare look back lest he lost his footing while he sprinted along the familiar path up the stairs. In his haste, he didn’t notice the stench of blood at first.

His steps led him further into the hall until they didn’t, and he stood frozen in the middle of the blood-covered floor. If he had thought his vampiric nature would always make him perceive blood as a kind of irresistible drug no matter how abhorrent the carnage, he’d been wrong. He remembered this, the torn-up body parts scattered about, the stench of acrid iron tainting the air, the puss seeping from shredded skin and cloth soaked in stale piss. Corpses piled high next to freshly dug ditches in the rotten earth, the smoke of bomb shells in the distance and a breath full of mustard gas. Crude violence and animal fear and someone whispering in the dark under the bedsheets that they want to go home, please.

They’d all been slaughtered.

He’d seen worse, he reminded himself to smother the horror scratching at the insides of his chest, he’d seen so much worse. He’d just never thought he would have to see it again after he’d returned from the frontline. So many times had he failed to save lives. Did a dozen more or less even make a difference anymore?

“Jonathan,” a distant voice reached through the fog filling his head and tugged him gently from the thick of it. But he refused to follow the whisper of his name back to a distorted reality that drowned him in a red sea of suffering and death. Instead, he shook his head minutely and closed his eyes, longing to escape this nightmare. What he wouldn’t give to return to a life before the epidemic and before the war. Where his only concern had been fighting injury and sickness that could be explained and overcome by rational thought. Not this demonic hatred infecting the minds of the people around him and provoking them to tear into each other with wicked delight.

“I’m sorry, I dragged you into this,” McCullum said quietly, standing somewhere too close. “Go home, Jonathan. I’ll find her and put an end to this.”

He cursed him for his words, for their gentleness and understanding, and for their terrible cruelty. There was nothing he wanted more than to go home. Back to his sister who would hold him fast and he could take her into his arms in turn, soothe away the pain of her loss with promises he could keep. Share stories over a cup of tea with his mother of days long past when their family had still been whole. And by nightfall, retreat to his childhood room, throw away his tin soldiers and let sleep take him away. But there wasn’t much of a home for him to return to anymore, only the fading memory of a shattered life that soon would be his alone to remember.

He looked up and found McCullum a few steps away, crouching down to inspect one of the fresh corpses. “She wasn’t a monster,” Jonathan spoke in a dejected voice. “She hadn’t killed anyone yet.” But she had said to his face how badly she wanted to, hadn’t she? He just hadn’t been willing to listen. “So, I let her be.” The lack of comprehension in McCullum’s unguarded expression as he turned towards him was as infuriating as it was justified. Of course, the other man would see no sense in his words when he still held the believe Jonathan had created this horror himself. But even though he hadn’t, it was his fault all the same because he had stood by and let it happen. “I know, you wouldn’t have made that mistake! You’d kill any one of our kind without a second thought,” he snapped at him in bitterness, not sure if he despised or envied the vampire hunter for his ruthlessness. All his knowledge and skill as a healer had turned out to be utterly useless in this twisted world where the only cure was death. Unaware of his bared teeth and fingers curled into claws in response to the raw frustration flaring inside his chest, he turned on his heel to follow the trail of freshly spilled blood Harriet had left in her wake. Behind him, the shadows had crept closer and McCullum’s knuckles had turned white gripping the hilt of his sword.

  


* * *

  


Though he couldn’t hear him, he knew the hunter was somewhere close behind him, following him through the winding tunnels. He cared little what the other vampire was up to. In the end he could still trust that he was just as determined as Jonathan, if not more so, to take down Harriet before she destroyed the city and slaughtered everyone in it.

The scent of blood that had led him grew more pungent with sickness and decay the closer he got. After passing the corpse of another Skal slain as she’d tried to escape, the narrow passage opened into a large reservoir. Thick columns painted almost white with mould stretched out of the murky waters towards a ceiling that lay somewhere above shrouded in darkness. He slowed his steps to a walk when he felt a presence familiar but dreaded and the air around him turned viscous with the colour of blood. Whispers in an ancient tongue echoed off the walls and blurred together with the heavy drum of a heartbeat in his ears. A human form cut itself like a mirage out of the red mist, crooked and horned. Jonathan clenched his jaw at the sight. He couldn’t stand listening to the riddles of his maker on a good night, never mind now while his thoughts were restless.

“Take not a step further, child, for you are unprepared,” the vampire’s smooth voice grated in his ears.

“Stay out of my way,” Jonathan demanded without any attempt at patience. “I’m here to stop Harriet Jones. She’s the source of the epidemic.”

The ancient vampire, as always, was undeterred by his blunt animosity, or by anything else for that matter. “I have heard you, but be wary. Harriet Jones’ mind is no more. She has-”

Not an hour ago, Jonathan would have been disheartened to learn that she was beyond saving, but he couldn’t bring himself to care anymore. “I just want to end this epidemic,” he interrupted his maker, unsurprised by the tiredness that was already creeping back into his tone. For all the anger that burned up his insides and edged him on, he realized it was a fleeting one, at its core nothing more than a brittle mask. As the confrontation with the mysterious entity forced him to pause and think, he felt it quickly losing ground to the heavy exhaustion that had long taken up permanent residence in the hollow of his bones.

“You cannot expect to withstand the effects of the blood of hate without protection from its poisonous kiss,” the older vampire cautioned. “I shall let you pass only once you possess it.”

Jonathan took an involuntary step back and blinked at the creature, then past him where the scattered corpses marked the path further into the darkness of the hall. Suddenly bereft of choice, his shoulders slumped in relief or defeat, realizing he wouldn’t have to confront Harriet, at least not for now. “What is the blood of hate? What protection do you speak of?” he asked in a dull tone and felt like a child for his glaring lack of knowledge - though in a conversation with his maker the feeling wasn’t exactly an unfamiliar one.

“It’s the curse of the Goddess. It’s the hunger in you, the need for blood. You’re not the first to face it and you will not be the last. Look to the memories of those who came before you,” he answered in his usual manner that explained barely anything.

“Goddess?” he echoed in disbelieve. He screwed his eyes shut and raised a hand to massage his temple where a headache was beginning to build up pressure on the other side of his skull. “You can’t be serious.” Was he asking the wrong questions or too plain stupid to understand his answers? Why couldn’t his maker just speak clearly for once, without riddles and metaphors?

“We don’t have time for this, Reid. He’s obviously stalling,” McCullum pointed out as he approached them. He paused next to Jonathan and gave him a questioning look that was only met with a tired, helpless shake of his head. Disappointment flickered in his blue eyes, or at least that’s what Jonathan thought it was, but when the hunter faced the mysterious vampire, his expression had already gone back to his usual scowl. “Will you let me pass or do I have to force my way?”

The creature eyed him with an unreadable expression, perhaps a kind of mild curiosity, and simply gestured him to go ahead. “Be my guest.”

“You would let him pass?!” Jonathan blurted out and then turned to McCullum who was giving him an odd look. “Don’t go. If what he says is true, Harriet Jones will infect you with her sickness. You will turn into a mindless beast.” His voice cracked on the last words. He knew and he feared that the other man wouldn’t listen to him.

“Can’t you see he’s manipulating you? We are _vampires_ , Reid. We don’t get sick,” the hunter said in a way that left no room for an argument. “We already are.”

His maker spoke with indifference, his gaze already back on Jonathan, “You will learn from his mistakes.” McCullum huffed indignantly at his words and then decided he was finished with their conversation. Without a stumble in his step, he moved past the ancient vampire, further along the brick path between the waters.

Jonathan stared at his back as the hunter walked away, wide-eyed and frozen in dismay. Even if McCullum survived whatever monster awaited him in the depths of the sewers, Jonathan would have to kill him, just like his sister. Put him down like a rabid dog. He wanted to call out to him, ask him to turn back, but there was no air in his lungs. “Geoffrey…” he managed to choke out, the name a slip of the tongue or something more desperate. “I don’t want to fight this crusade alone.” Words that were too childish to be taken seriously and too quiet to be heard.

“You don’t need him,” the older vampire chided him, a meagre note of pity in his voice. “He is of no relevance to your quest.”

Jonathan looked to his maker and wondered if he could even blame him for not taking kindly to the leader of Priwen when he must have hunted and killed so many of their kin without remorse. But McCullum hadn’t killed him when he had the chance, he had even shown him kindness for no other reason. There was more to him than the blood of monsters on his hands. “You’re wrong,” he whispered and took another step back to gather his focus, his eyes snapping back to the hunter and his headache forgotten.

It took McCullum barely a second to break through the ice freezing his veins and his body. With a snarl on his lips and his sword up to defend he whirled around, threads of shadow fluttering around his frame. For just the blink of an eye it all fell away when he caught sight of Jonathan, and left bare the confusion on his face, the look of one who’s been betrayed. Wouldn’t he have known better though? “Don’t cross me, Reid,” the hunter growled with his teeth flashing sharp and a threatening slash of his longsword through the air. “This is our only chance to kill her before it’s too late. You know that.”

Jonathan hesitated, thrown off by the pang of guilt in his chest. “There has to be another way. I won’t stand here and do nothing while you run towards certain death,” he shot back and his raised voice echoed distorted off the walls. “Turn back!” Darkness poured out between the cracks in the brickwork and twitched in time with his fingers as it pooled at his feet, restless and volatile.

“You’re even more of an idiot than I thought if you believe his lies.” It sounded almost disappointed. He began to advance, slowly at first but quickly falling into a run, the tip of his sword pointed low and slightly behind him. A glint of red on the sharp blade, but maybe it was just a trick of the light.

Before the other vampire could reach him, Jonathan jumped back and sent out a wave of shadow, lapping up from the dark waters around them and spilling over onto the pathway. Thick spears split the air and forced McCullum to sidestep. While he managed easily the first two or three times, the next one shredded part of his coat and then Jonathan could hear a muffled hiss of pain as a black spike pierced through his side and left a gaping wound running red. He let his magic fall at the same instant, like ink dropping lifelessly to the ground it peeled back over the edges, before he remembered the other man wasn’t human anymore, he didn’t break as easily anymore.

“I should have cut out your rotten heart,” McCullum snarled darkly as he stared up from his hand that had come away covered in blood from the wound. With those words the expression on his face shuttered. There was nothing of the menacing glares he’d shot Jonathan during their last fight, nothing of his open hostility and disdain. The blankness was somehow far more terrifying. The hunter moved fast as he rushed forward, the edges of his form blurred black with his speed amplified by the supernatural blood flowing through his veins and perhaps the recklessness that came with immortality.

Again Jonathan retreated, further back into the tunnels and away from the invisible line his maker had drawn for him. With a flick of his wrists his fingers turned to claws, razor-sharp and dripping with darkness. At first cowardice stayed his hands and he focused more on dodging the other vampire’s brutal swings instead of attacking himself. The narrow corridor made it difficult enough for McCullum to use the full advantage of such a large weapon. More than once the tip scratched along the brick walls and showered the two of them in fetid mould and dust alike.

As the sword came down in a particularly failed swing Jonathan saw an opening and instead of ducking away he made a grab for the blade. Shadow flared up between his hand and the sharpened iron to cushion the blow, still he could feel the sheer force behind it thrumming painfully through his arm. Too late he realized he’d fallen for a feint. He let out a surprised gasp when the weapon was twisted easily out of his grip and he was seized by the throat in a merciless hold. Pain pierced his chest as cold steel carved its way through flesh and bones until the cross-guard settled against his ribs.

He blinked, his vision swimming with darkness, and then all he could focus on were the hunter’s blue eyes, blank to the point where they just seemed lost. No triumphant grin, no mocking sneer and Jonathan wondered what emotion McCullum was so desperately trying to hide from him. A smile formed on his own lips, twisted delirious and sad. “I'm sorry, but I mean to win this time,” he coughed out alongside a mouthful of blood. An ugly thing reared its head inside him, something disregarded and despised, and it whispered to the shadows and the shadows swallowed both men whole.

Fear. Fear was the last thing he saw in McCullum’s eyes and he realized he’d never before seen him afraid of anything.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> because this fic is actually mainly just a fix-it for McCullum's “I wish I could join this battle alongside you. But this crusade is not mine to fight.”  
> (╯ರ ~ ರ）╯︵ ┻━┻


End file.
